Auswirkungen der IFRS-Umstellung auf die Risikoprämie von Unternehmensanleihen – Eine empirische Studie für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz

Does an IFRS-adoption reduce the information asymmetry between firms and providers of debt capital and therefore the risk premium of corporate bonds? Contrary to prior empirical studies we examine the relationship between disclosure and cost of capital for debt financing. We analyse the impact of an IFRS-adoption on the risk premium of German, Austrian, and Swiss corporate bonds between 1997 and 2005. Our results indicate that the change in risk premium declines after an IFRS-adoption by 40%. However, the effect occurs with a time-lag.     

Kosten und Kostentreiber von unerwünschten Werbemails (Spam) — Eine empirische Analyse auf Provider- und Anwenderseite

Zusammenfassung  In der Literatur wird diskutiert, dass unerwünschte Werbemails (Spam) sowohl auf individueller als auch auf volkswirtschaftlicher Ebene erhebliche Kosten verursachen, deren H?he jedoch unbestimmt ist. Diese Fragestellung wird mit zwei empirischen Untersuchungen adressiert, in denen die Mitarbeiter einer Universit?t zu ihren Spam-Kosten befragt wurden. Die Daten werden mit Hilfe von Finite Mixture Regressions analysiert. In der Betrachtung der Kosten ergibt sich der Befund, dass die auf individueller Ebene entstehenden Kosten die zentralen Kosten auf IT-Ebene deutlich übersteigen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Spam-Belastung bei den Mitarbeitern heterogen verteilt ist und dass ein Spamfilter vor allem bei stark belasteten Nutzern zu einer Kostenersparnis führt. Um die Heterogenit?t in der Spam-Wahrnehmung und die Angst vor Fehlklassifikationen zu berücksichtigen, sollten die Nutzer die M?glichkeit haben, auf einfache Art auf den Filterprozess einzuwirken.

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Costs and cost drivers of unsolicited bulk email (spam) — an empirical analysis

Summary  This paper empirically addresses the often claimed assumption that unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) causes significant costs — on the individual level as well as for the entire society. To shed light on this problem, employees of a large university were interviewed twice in order to determine the individual costs caused by spam and to identify the relevant cost drivers using finite mixture regressions. The results indicate a heterogeneous distribution of spam load and the resulting costs. The panel approach yields the conclusion that spam filters lead to a reduction of costs only for users severely troubled by spam. Furthermore, people tend to become active against spam only when a certain threshold of spam burden is reached. The costs caused by spam for the users exceed the central IT-related expenses by far. For the implementation of spam filters the results suggest a two step procedure to be most efficient: central actions should be taken to block e-mails that can be unambiguously identified as spam. Further, users should be given the opportunity to influence the filtering process in order to account for heterogeneity and their fear of false classification.

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Die Autoren bedanken sich sehr herzlich bei den Mitarbeitern des Rechenzentrums der Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel für die intensive Kooperation. Wir danken zudem Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. S?nke Albers, Christian Barrot, Eva Bl?meke und Christina Schmidt-St?lting für die zahlreichen Hinweise zu früheren Fassungen des Aufsatzes. Auch die beiden Gutachter und das Herausgeberteam der ZfB haben zahlreiche Verbesserungsvorschl?ge gemacht, die zu einer substanziellen Verbesserung des Manuskripts geführt haben.     

Gleichmäßige Bewertung von Mietwohngrundstücken durch das neue steuerliche Ertragswertverfahren? Eine empirische Analyse

This paper deals with the question if the new valuation procedure for rental property established by the German Inheritance Tax Reform Act 2009 provides more consistent tax values than the previous valuation procedure which has been abolished as a result of the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Our empirical findings show no improvement of the valuation results in terms of statistical spread. The only effect of the new valuation procedure is increasing tax values on average, and hence, tax values often exceed market values. But higher tax values could have been achieved with less effort by simply raising the multiplier of the previous valuation procedure. The findings of this contribution and the results of other papers suggest there is no standardised valuation procedure for rental property which provides a proper performance. Valuation of real estate remains one of the unsolved and presumably permanent problems of the inheritance tax in particular and of capital-based taxation in general.     

Die Wirkung von informellen und internetbasierten Rekrutierungskanälen auf den Rekrutierungserfolg: Eine empirische Analyse in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen

This study analyses the impact of informal and web-based recruitment sources on several dimensions of SME recruitment success. Our results show that informal recruitment sources unfold a different impact on applicant-pool quantity and -quality, and applicant fit than web-based recruitment sources. Informal recruitment sources (recruitment via personal networks, employee referrals etc.) enhance applicant-pool quality, person-organization fit and person-job fit. Web-based recruitment sources primarily increases applicant-pool quantity. HR-recruitment websites also unfold a positive effect on applicant-pool quality. Accordingly, the use of these recruitment sources needs to be planned in a strategic manner, in order to achieve firm specific recruitment goals regarding applicant-pool quantity and –quality.     

Der Einfluss von Kognition und Affekt auf Unternehmensgründungsentscheidungen: Eine vergleichende Analyse von Angestellten und Unternehmern

The relationship between individuals?? entrepreneurial behavior and objective situational characteristics of an entrepreneurial opportunity??individual-opportunity nexus??lies in the focus of entrepreneurship research. The role of subjective appraisals and affective influences in the pre-entrepreneurial process was neglected in this context so far. On the basis of a questionnaire experiment with two different samples of employees and entrepreneurs, our results confirm central assumptions of cognitive appraisal and emotion theories. The subjective appraisals of objective entrepreneurial opportunities better predict entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation decisions than the objective characteristics of the entrepreneurial opportunity. Furthermore, the results show in addition to an inverse direct effect of negative affect that the relationship between the entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation is negatively moderated by negative affect. Our analyses indicate that the two subsamples show differences in their cognitive processes, but that they are still generally comparable. The affective influences on the pre-entrepreneurial process, however, demonstrate no group specific differences. These results extend the individual-opportunity-nexus-paradigm that is based on objective characteristics by examining the meaning of subjective appraisals and affective reactions and therefore the intersection of individuals and entrepreneurial opportunities.     

Zum Einfluss der Inhaberführung auf die Betriebsrat-Geschäftsführer-Beziehung – Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse in mittelständischen Unternehmen

This paper examines the quality of the relationship between business managements and works councils in small and medium-sized enterprises and strives for answering the question, which factors determine the quality. As ownership is an important determining factor of the establishment of works councils in small and medium-sized businesses, especially the impact of ownership on this relationship has been investigated. Agency theory and stewardship theory give hints that the owner management can have different impacts on this relationship. In order to test these contradictory hypotheses we have estimated a Heckman selection model to investigate which factors determine the quality of the relationship between business managements and works councils. Our results based on data generated from a survey in small and medium-sized enterprises conducted by the IfM Bonn in the years 2005 and 2006 indicate that ownership has a negative influence on the establishment of works councils, but a positive one on the quality of the relationship between business management and works council. Thus, the hypotheses predicting the existence of stewardship behaviour among owners and the existence of agency behaviour among managers can be confirmed.